Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/55

Rh Many examples will also be given from other communities, and we shall make frequent visits to the lagoon villages of the western shore, to places on the south of the island, and to some of the neighbouring smaller islands of the Archipelago. In all these other communities more uniform and democratic conditions prevail, and this makes some difference in the character of their sexual life.

In entering the village we had to pass across the street between the two concentric rows of houses. This is the normal setting of the everyday life of the community, and thither we must return in order to make a closer survey of the groups of people sitting in front of their dwellings (see pl. 4). As a rule we find that each group consists of one family only — man, wife, and children — taking their leisure, or engaged in some domestic activity which varies with the time of day. On a fine morning we would see them hastily eating a scanty breakfast, and then the man and woman preparing the implements for the day's work, with the help of the bigger children, while the baby is laid out of the way on a mat. Afterwards, during the cool hours of the forenoon, each family would probably set off to their work, leaving the village almost deserted. The man, in company with others, may be fishing or hunting or building a canoe or looking for Rh